The allocation economy in this channel The allocation economy is the idea, written by the presenter of AI Was Supposed to Save Time. Why Am I Busier? three years before the video, that we will work with AI agents the way managers work with people: delegating to them, knowing when to micromanage, and splitting tasks into discrete units to hand out.[^1c5729f0-aa49-5017-8b76-b56651ca5602@108] The presenter points out that this analogy, written in 2023, is turning out to be the best predictor of which skills matter most when working with AI.[^1c5729f0-aa49-5017-8b76-b56651ca5602@141] Why it matters here The term anchors the channel's broader exploration of AI and work: Every, the 25-person company behind the piece, uses it as a lens on its own experiment — everyone there is an early adopter testing models, making the company a small lab for what work with agents looks like.[^1c5729f0-aa49-5017-8b76-b56651ca5602@196] In practice the economy shows up in two shapes: informal Slack delegation to bots like Claudie, Andy, and Victor, and structured agent orchestration software like Codex and Co-work.[^1c5729f0-aa49-5017-8b76-b56651ca5602@229][^1c5729f0-aa49-5017-8b76-b56651ca5602@283] Manager-like skills — delegation and task decomposition — are the ones that transfer best into this world, which is why the allocation economy connects the channel's material on Compound Engineering to its coverage of jobs and the future of work. - The allocation economy frames humans as managers of agents: delegating, micromanaging when needed, and splitting work into discrete hand-out tasks.[^- Written in 2023, the analogy has become the best predictor of which skills matter most with AI.[^- It underpins the channel's paradox: cheaper AI expertise means more demand for manager-like human skills, not less.[